The Band

Based out of Tokyo, Japan, Life After Failing began life in mid-2004
when Justin Leclair looked
for other players to form a jam band. The beginning line-up consisted
of two guitars, bass, alto sax and drums. In early mid-2005, the band
also added a keyboard player for a while; alas, his participation in
the project was short and sweet.

Although the group primarily worked as a 5- and 6-piece ensemble, March
2005 began seeing the core rhythm section of Justin Leclair (guitar),
Trane Francks (bass) and David Watkins (drums) working to refine
material on its own. With other members missing from rehearsals more
and more, the core trio soon developed a taste for working on its own
and the material took on a characteristic edginess that was missing
from the sound of the band as a larger unit.

In June 2005, as the other members amicably withdrew from the project
due to personal reasons, Life After Failing officially became an
instrumental trio.
At that point, the band moved forward with the textural musical vision
that had been developed by Leclair, Francks and Watkins. It wasn't long
before the trio realized that the material had become strong enough to
warrant booking a session to record a snapshot of the band's expression
of the moment. On August 11th, 2005, the band entered Rinky Dink Studio
in Umegaoka, Tokyo and left 12 hours later with eight songs worth of
raw tracks that would be mixed and mastered by Francks over the next
month to become the band's debut album, Small Light.

An interesting departure from the norm was the band recording Small Light even before it had
played its first show. Instead of playing shows, possibly for
years, before venturing into the studio, Life After Failing honed its
craft and its material in the rehearsal studio. The band released the
album on September 23, 2005 at Shinjuku ACB Hall.

David Watkins
(drums)

At the age of 7
David started tapping along to his father's Duke Ellington records with
his mother's knitting needles and he thus became "a drummer".
Since then he has played in a plethora of bands, starting with the
local boy scout marching band through to his pre-Life After Failing
outfit - a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band that went by the name of
The Shit Hot Chili Peppers.

Justin Leclair
(guitar)

Justin is the Pumpmeister of the band, bringing an incurable and
unstoppable enthusiasm to everything the band does. Justin loves
playing to the point of excluding much else in life. Dave and I love to
rib Justin about his trademark-enthusiastic comments "I'm so pumped!"
and "I'm totally stoked to play tonight!", but, the truth is, the band
would be nowhere as much fun without those good vibes. While it's
true that the band approaches writing material as a whole, Justin
brings forth most of the seeds of inspiration from which the music is
developed. Justin hails from Canada and is fluent in both English and
French. Go Justin!

Photo: Nakiko Francks

Updated: 2005-09-27 22:14
JST

Trane Francks (bass)

Affectionately known as Grampino to the guys, Trane brings to the
band a serious love of improvisational playing. During his formative
years, he spent equal time cranking out to hard rock and jamming the
blues as a guitarist, storming through jazz standards as a trumpet
player and trying his best to come to grips with hard-bopping walking
bass lines as a bassist. Life After Failing brought new challenges to
the playing field with the band's uniquely textural approach to the
soundscape. "Fleshing out our sound and yet still leaving the music
enough room to breathe remains a constant challenge," says Trane.
"Every time the band gets together, it's a learning experience."

As a bassist, Trane's main influences include Ray Brown, Jaco
Pastorius, John Entwistle and John Paul Jones. John Paul Jones's bass
line in Led Zeppelin's "The Lemon Song" was the reason why Trane bought
his first bass at the age of 15.

Trane's geek side comes in useful as he records all the band's
rehearsals, engineered some of Small
Light as well as mixing and mastering the entire album. If you
think Trane's bio doesn't sound all that humble, it's probably because
he's also the webmaster for LAF and is writing this bit. Trane's, like,
Canadian, eh.